Everton were comprehensively beaten 3-1 at Goodison Park tonight in a match that underlined just how far the Toffees have to go to compete at the top of the Premier League.
In truth, I think as many people will, that Everton played the champions tonight. City are a fantastic team, they are in awsome form and are head and shoulders above everyone else in the Premier League. It looks like it will take an extremely unlikely collapse or some unbelievable run from someone else to stop Pep Guardiola’s side taking the title this season.
Going into the match Carlo Ancelotti picked the sort of team I hoped he would. He returned to the defence that has been the most miserly so far. So Mason Holgate, Yerry Mina, Micheal Keane and Ben Godfrey were the back four.
In midfield Ancelotti didn’t have Allan who wasn’t on the bench either and so Tom Davies partnered Abdoulaye Doucoure in the middle with Alex Iwobi and Lucas Digne wide. Up front Gylfi Sigurdsson started behind Richarlison. Again no Josh King presumably still unfit to start.
City dominated the match and the ball from the kick off and were into their stride very quickly and easily. The Blues were on the back foot as we and Ancelotti expected and soon the away team were basically camped in the Everton half.
The visitors were soon creating chances playing some silky smooth attacking football as usual. Without Dominic Calvert-Lewin the Toffees were struggling to have any focal point up front on the rare occasions they got hold of the ball and managed to get out of their half.
Jordan Pickford had replaced Robin Olsen in goal and he pulled off a fine save to keep it scoreless. Then in an early blow Everton lost Mina to injury and Seamus Coleman came on.
Although the Blues were battling hard, the opening goal for City eventually and predictably came. The goal itself was a little fortunate for the visitors as Phil Foden took a shot which deflected in off Coleman. But City deserved to lead.
Everton though didn’t fold however and they then had a bit of luck of their own to get it back to 1-1 before halftime. A good move saw Coleman cross and Digne’s powerful shot come back off the woodwork and hit Richarlison to put it in the net.
City were now a little frustrated and the Toffees were starting to look a bit more consistent a threat on the counter-attack with Richarlison working hard on his own.
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But then as so often the league leaders found another gear and took the match away from Everton. There was nothing lucky about their second goal as Rihad Mahrez scored with a superb shot that beat Pickford and went in via the post.
That was that as the Blues never looked like getting a second equaliser and then Bernard Silva added a third, which Pickford yet again should have done much better against.
It was another long shot but once more the England keeper was too easily beaten. It didn’t ultimately matter, Everton were never getting another goal, but it was another really poor effort from him. Why didn’t Olsen continue playing tonight?
Again Ancelotti made some strange substitutions late in the match. He brought James Rodriguez on and took Daveis off, which weakened the midfield and as I’ve said before I can’t see how Sigurdsson and Rodriguez can play together. It didn’t work with both on the pitch and the Toffees lack of pace up front was underlined again.
But the truth is that regardless of who played tonight, Everton are a long, long way from competing with sides like City or even frankly getting a European place on this week’s evidence. Next up the Merseyside derby at Anfield where the Toffees haven’t won since 1999.